Conventional autostereoscopic displays use arrays of lenses or parallax barriers or other view selectors to make a number of pixels of the display visible to one eye of a viewing person and to make a number of other pixels of the display visible to the other eye of the viewing person. By isolating the pixels of the display visible to each eye, the two fields of a stereoscopic image can be presented on the display. The presentation of separate fields to each eye is often used to cause the viewer to perceive a three-dimensional image.
Current stereoscopic displays project a perceived depth of about a few centimeters. In other words, most autostereoscopic displays project portions of an image no more than about 1-2 centimeters in front of, and no more than about 1-2 centimeters behind, the display. Some autostereoscopic displays a purported to project a perceived depth of up to one foot, i.e., about 30 cm. However, such displays suffer from optical aberrations such a poor focus except for items projected near the surface of the display.
One of the major difficulties in projecting a greater depth of perception is that of optical artifacts in the lenticular array often used to select a different field to be visible to each eye of the human viewer. One such effect is that a given portion of the image can be visible in two or more places, such as in two or more lenticles of a lenticular array. Other effects include optical aberrations that are typically not noticeable with very short projected distances, such as just a few centimeters.
What is needed is an autostereoscopic display in which significantly greater projected depths of perception can be achieved without undesirable artifacts.